So deep in her distraction was she that Thea did not hear the first tap at her door. At the second knock her heart began a slow, strong pounding in her breast. “Come in.”
Matlin stood in the doorway looking tired and uncertain of his welcome. There were dark circles under his eyes and a deep, frowning crease in his cheek. “I came to see if you were all right.”
“I’m fine.” Thea gathered the folds of her negligee about her shyly. “Please come in.”
His look of uncertainty intensified. “I only came to ask....”
“How I am. That’s what you said. You haven’t told me what happened after I left.” She nodded as he came in and closed the door behind him. “Did my cousin get to speak to Canning?”
“Your cousin,” Matlin said acidly, “spoke to Canning, to Hammond, to Lord Chatham, to Musgrave at the Admiralty, to Castlereagh at the War Office—to everyone, in fact, except the charwoman. Uh, he asked me to convey his apologies to you.”
Thea laughed rustily, feeling a little giddy. “I’ll wager he did! I never in my life met a cooler hand than my cousin Joaquín. I wish Bess Chase joy of him! If Tony ever lets him near her,” she added thoughtfully.
“I think it is more likely that Joaquín will find it is Miss Chase who puts up the objections: she did not take kindly to the fact that he had abducted you.” Matlin’s tone was wry. When she turned to face him she was still smiling; the light from the hearth caught the soft curves of the satin she wore and made her hair a bright glow in the darkness. She did not look in the least like a child of fourteen.
Without thinking, Matlin blurted out, “Dammit, how old are you?”
“What?” Thea looked at him blankly.
It was out, and he had as well know now for good and all. “How old are you?” he asked again, more gently.
“Nineteen. I’m nineteen.” She looked at him curiously. “My birthday passed while we were on that wretched ship back to England.”
Matlin had the feeling that the floor had suddenly dropped several feet beneath him. “You were eighteen when we were married?”
Thea nodded.
He sat heavily on the end of her bed and shook his head. He muttered to himself. “Damn those women,” were the first words Thea could make out. “Do you know they had me believing that you were much younger? Much younger?”
“How much younger?”
“My child bride!” Incredibly, he was laughing. “Thirteen, fourteen years old. That was Mother Beatriz’s guess, and your Silvy just kept murmuring about her niña, her baby.”
“Don’t say anything about Silvy,” Thea began fiercely.
Instantly his laughter was gone. He rose and offered his hand to her. “Thea, I am sorry. Your cousin told me that Doña de Silva died. She was a very good woman.”
“She loved me.” Shyly, Thea took his hand. “And I loved her. She thought I would be happy, anyway. She was where she wanted to be, in Spain. It is funny the difference it makes; I might never have seen her again in the course of things, but to know that I cannot....” She stared into the fire.
“Thea?” Matlin said at last, very gently. “You say Silvy thought you would be happy. Was she so far wrong? I know we’ve made a muddle of it from the start, you and I, but do you think you could be happy with me?”
She looked down at their linked hands. “Could you?”
Carefully, with a sense of great daring, Matlin gathered her into his arms. “I love you; did you know? My aunt and uncle seemed to know it before I did; even Canning was aware of it. I only realized it yesterday. That was why I was at Ranelagh last night, to tell you.” He looked down into her face. “Don’t look so amazed! The only thing that kept me from admitting it before that was that I thought you were a—forgive me, but—a child. Good God, every time I thought of the night we...in the hut when I...well, I thought I had done something unforgiveable. I thought you had to hate me.”
“I was afraid I had done something wrong; you were so cold and sober I thought it had to be my fault. I was so achingly in love with you I didn’t....”
Whatever she had been about to say was forgotten. Matlin tightened his hold and kissed her. The tense excitement Thea had been aware of from the moment of his knock on the door blossomed into a fire somewhere inside of her. She slid her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with all her strength. It was Matlin who broke away first, to stare down at her.
“Lord, how could I ever have thought you a child?” He ran his hand over the smooth satin at her back. “I’ve been castigating myself for taking advantage of you.”
Unsteadily Thea raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him lightly, teasingly. “Idiot.”
“We’ve neither of us been particularly clever, have we? So you don’t mean to leave me to myself, sweetheart? You’ll forgive and forget?”
“Idiot,” she repeated. His mouth came down on hers hard, his hands at her back pressed her tightly against him. For a moment she returned the kiss avidly; her hands twined in his dark hair. Then, abruptly, she broke away, not only from the kiss but from his arms entirely.
“Thea?” Matlin was breathing heavily. “Did I frighten you? Dear heart, I....”
A moment before she had been flushed and smiling. Now Thea was pale, and her mouth trembled in the corners. “It isn’t you. It’s me. I lied to you; you may not want....” She turned her back and walked away nervously and twisted her hands together. “I didn’t mean to say it; it just came out of its own accord. I thought you didn’t want me. Perhaps now you won’t anyway.”
A dozen images passed through Matlin’s head; the first and worst was that of Joaquín, cousin or not, with his wife. It was none of her fault; he was sure of that; he would love her whatever had happened. If I let that Spanish bastard get away with a nick in his arm, if he laid a hand on her.... Aloud he said gently, “Nothing you can say will scare me away after all this trial, little one. What is your dire secret?”
“Douglas, there is no child.”
For a long moment Matlin stared at her uncomprehending. Child? What? Then it came to him. “You are not....”
Stony faced, Thea nodded. “I am not. When you said you wanted to annul the marriage I said the first thing that came into my head, and that was—it. I kept thinking that, if I could only keep you long enough to find out how I had displeased you, you would forgive me; I could make it up to you; you might love me some time.” Then, as if to deny any pathos in her words, Thea laughed a small, awkward laugh. “Idiotic of me, wasn’t it?”
He smiled. “Unconscionably. So there is no child?”
Thea shook her head.
Matlin reached out for her again. “That’s not to say there could not be another time; is it?”
“What?” Thea blushed deep crimson. “No. That’s not to say that at all. With a little effort I suppose there could be a baby. Sometime.”
He had her in his arms again, her yellow curls brushing his chin. “Think of my relief! Sweetheart, you had me believing I would have to call your cousin out.”
“Joaquín? When he isn’t thinking of his everlasting mission for Spain he has eyes for Bess only. I don’t think he even likes me much. You would never do something as stupid as that? Fight a duel over me, would you?”
Thinking of the meeting on the heath hours before, Matlin shook his head lightly. “Of course not, but I cannot admire his taste, your cousin. Miss Chase is a very pretty girl.” He bent his head and kissed her lightly. “But she cannot compare to a diamond like my wife.”
“Or Lady Towles?” Thea suggested.
He held her away from him for a moment and scowled fiercely. “I will make a pact with you: I will acquit you of your cousin if you will acquit me of Adele Towles. I have had enough to do with that entire family to last me well into another lifetime. My taste has improved since I met my wife. I thought Chase had explained the whole of that mess to you.”
“He did, and Douglas, I am so ashamed of what I said to you this morning.”
He la
id a finger over her lips.. “Hush. It is all forgotten. Everything that was misunderstood between us is all forgotten. Now, it’s late. You will want your sleep.” He smiled into her upturned face. “In the morning....”
“Matlin, you aren’t planning on leaving me alone, are you?” A deep blush rose in her cheeks, but she held her ground; she felt at once shameless and daring and quite comfortable with him: he was as flushed as she.
“Thea,” he began. “Dear love, don’t you think? I mean, I don’t want to—I had meant to court you a little. I don’t want to take advantage....”
“Then you’re more honorable than I am,” Thea said tartly. “You make me feel as if there were something wrong with me for wanting you.”
“Perish the thought,” he said unsteadily. “You don’t know....”
“I have some idea,” she reminded him. “Here I am, being as forward as I know how to be, Douglas Matlin; the least you could do is to kiss me again.”
Absently he ran one hand along her spine; the other was tangled in her hair, and was twisting the curls. With difficulty he said, “I still have the feeling I would be ravishing a child.”
“You forget.” Thea moved closer to him and put her arms about his neck; she drew his face close to hers. “I’ve been ravished before, in a hut in the Spanish hills. I liked it.”
“Did you?” When at last he raised his head Matlin smiled a small, quirky smile. “I am a very lucky man. How could I have failed to notice before?”
Thea smiled at him lovingly. “Just so you don’t fail to notice it again!”
He picked her up, cradled her against his chest, and kissed her throat, her shoulder. “Oh, I won’t fail this time,” he breathed. “No fear of that.”
Finis
Copyright & Credits
The Spanish Marriage
A Regency Romance
Madeleine Robins
Book View Café Edition
May 22, 2012
ISBN 978-1-61138-172-6
Cover Design: Amy Sterling Casil
Copyright © 1984 Madeleine Robins
First Edition: Fawcett, 1984
ISBN 0-449-20124-4
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Sample Chapter: The Heiress Companion
Chapter One
“Excuse me, miss, but if you could step into the small saloon for a moment?” The butler’s diffident voice broke into Miss Cherwood’s concentration on the lists and notes before her.
“Someone to see me, Drummey?” she asked, frowning slightly at a bill for wax candles. There were only three persons she knew of who might be desiring an audience with her today, taken up with last minute details for the party as she was. And the thought of breaking off her work to speak with any one of the three did not please her. There was the chance that it might be Mr. Greavesey, the physician’s assistant, bringing Lady Bradwell’s drops and eyewash. Since Mr. Greavesey showed an alarming and distasteful tendency to moist sighings and significant glances when in Miss Cherwood’s vicinity, he would hardly be a welcome visitor. If it was Lady Bradwell’s older son, he would likely be hot with a brainstorm regarding the stables or one of the shooting pens; while Lord Bradwell was as good-natured as the day is long, he was also long-winded when enthusiastic, and totally impervious to polite hints that perhaps one might have other things to attend to than a new design for tack pegs.
The only other person who might not realize that the ladies of Broak Hall were not “at home” this afternoon, Miss Cherwood thought with a sniff, was Lady Bradwell’s younger son, whose arrival had been expected hourly for the last week. Miss Cherwood had no sympathy for Lyndon Bradwell, having attended his mother during much of her illness six months before and seen how important his arrival was to her mistress. Indeed, the party that was consuming so much of her attention was being held at Lady Bradwell’s expressed command, to welcome home her prodigal son, gone these six years in the army, and in Naples.
“Gone for six years, and still it takes him six months to return home when his poor mamma is deathly ill! The least That Man could do now is return according to his own schedule.” Patting a stray curl briskly into place, Miss Cherwood returned her attention to the butler. “Cannot the gentleman join me here?” she asked, resigning herself to Mr. Greavesey’s oily compliments or Lord Bradwell’s inarticulate enthusiasms.
“Well, that’s the first thing, miss. It isn’t a gentleman. It’s a young woman, miss, or perhaps I dare say a young lady. And I believe she’s arrived by stagecoach. And she insists that she talk directly to you, miss.”
“A mystery? Well, thank you, Drummey. I shall join her directly.” This was strange. There was no young woman she could think of who would be calling at Broak on a chill, raining afternoon, certainly not when the house was known to be under covers for the party preparations; there was absolutely no one who should be arriving by stagecoach and asking particularly to see her. Miss Cherwood left the library and made her way to the small saloon.
As she entered the room and her visitor turned to greet her, Miss Cherwood experienced a shock. The face that greeted her, the shade of chestnut hair, even its arrangement, might have been her own mirror image — seven years before. “Margaret!” she cried joyfully, and the two of them flew into an embrace.
“Rowena, you haven’t any idea how glad I am to see you!” Margaret Cherwood confessed at last, freed from the confines of spencer and bonnet. “I was afraid you would turn me away at once. Not but what you may, when I tell you what I have done, but O! Renna, it was too much to be borne.”
“Why, yes, dear, I imagine it was, if it put you in such a state. Now sit here, and I’ll ring for some tea, and you shall tell me all about it.” Miss Cherwood guided her cousin to a comfortable chair, coaxed her to settle into it and to accept a shawl for her shoulders, and, having ordered the tea, seated herself opposite on the sofa.
“Now, what brings you to Broak in the middle of such a cold, dreary day? And in the midst of the Season, at that?”
“I vow, Renna, it wasn’t my idea at all, but I could not bear the idea of going to my grandmamma Lewis’s, and I knew that you were on the way to Bristol — well, in a manner of speaking, anyway. So I left the stage at Reading and bought a ticket to Plymouth, but the coachman let me down almost outside the gates of Broak.”
“Which answers my questions nicely, and tells me nothing about why you are here, or why you were traveling to Lady Lewis’s. She’s not ill, I trust. I find it — forgive me — a trifling bit difficult to believe that your mamma has let you from her sight as easily as that.”
“But it was Mamma’s idea,” Miss Margaret informed her cousin. “Mamma says that I am an ungrateful wretch, and don’t deserve to bear the name that I do.”
If Rowena was supposed to have been shocked by this dire pronouncement, it did not do its work. She shook her head. “Refused an offer she wanted you to accept, did you? Nothing is more calculated to send your mamma into a fit of dejection, Meggy love. I heard just such fustian when I refused an offer from that horrible Sir Jason Slyppe — the fellow with the badly made corset and the spots
.”
“He’s now a peer,” Margaret informed her cousin glumly. “He loaned the Regent a scandalous amount of money. And Mamma does seem to want him in the family.”
“Then, begging my uncle’s pardon, she had best marry him herself,” Rowena said flatly. “And you are being rusticated?”
“I wouldn’t mind so much, for I am fond of Grandmamma Lewis, but when I go to visit her she always finds so many ways for me to be useful —”
“A slave,” Miss Cherwood suggested succinctly.
“Rowena!” Margaret protested. “It’s just that I couldn’t face being there all alone, erranding for Grandmamma and being expected to be repentant when I’m not in the least, and —”
“I quite understand, Meg. So you came to me, for which I am flattered. But now — what on earth shall I do with you?”
Margaret looked puzzled. “Do? Renna, I hadn’t meant to be a charge on you —”
“Don’t be an absurd infant, my dear. It’s only that I am differently circumstanced now than I used to be. I think, in fact I am certain, that Lady B will be delighted that you have come, but just on the off chance that I cannot keep you with me for more than a few days — you see, love, I’m an employee now, and not a guest, and Lady Bradwell — well, I do owe her the courtesy of asking her permission before I offer you permanent asylum.”
“If it’s not convenient —” Margaret began, a little stiffly.
“You’ll continue to your grandmamma’s? Nonsense, love. You are no trouble at all. You know what a manager I am, and I am only trying to take everything into account so that we cannot be taken down by chance. More particularly, so that Lady B won’t be troubled by anything. That is my job here, after all, and she’s the dearest old thing, and still a little invalidish.”
Spanish Marriage Page 19
